The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

In a move which is either badly mistimed or deliberately chosen to spark trouble, the police have detained Road Control journalist Andriy Dzyndzya and an MP’s assistant and are refusing to allow lawyers or MPs in to see them raising fears that the men may bave been beaten

Dorozhny Kontrol [Road Control] which monitors the work of Ukraine’s rather notorious traffic police has reported the arrest of its journalist Andriy Dzyndzya, together with two MPs’ assistants – Kulinovsky (first name not given) and Serhiy Khadzynov. Kulikovsky was released after questioning; the other two men have been taken to the Department for Fighting Organized Crime [UBOL] on Gorky St. As of 21.40 the police were not allowing MPs and lawyers to see the men.

Road Control reports that a number of people have burst into the UBOL building and the police have barricaded themselves in.

The UBOL staff are refusing to explain why they are not allowing the MPs and lawyers to see the men and why the latter have been detained.

More and more people are arriving at the building and three buses with Berkut riot police have arrived.

Road Control has asked EuroMaidan to go to the UBOL building to get the men released. They believe that the men may have been seriously beaten and that for this reason the police are trying to stop people seeing them.

It is probably worth noting that Dzyndzya is one of the two main Road Control journalists who had extremely dubious criminal charges brought against them earlier this year. As reported, his colleague – Andriy Zhukovyen – learned of the charges while on a work-related trip to the USA and applied for political asylum which was granted last month.

The criminal proceedings were initiated by the Svyatoshynsky Police Station in Kyiv at the beginning of 2013 against Dzyndzya and Zhukovyen (and possibly also Yevhen Yeremenko).

On Nov 26, 2012 Road Control announced that a group of thugs had been brought in by the traffic police [DAI] and had set upon Dzyndzya who got his face smashed, and Zhukoven who received several blows to the head. The journalists had been making a video film of what they say is a new illegal private car impoundment area to which Kyiv residents’ cars are being towed and which does not have a formal agreement with the DAI. .

Road Control asserted then that DAI traffic police officers had called around 20 thugs who attacked the journalists. The police who arrived at the scene did nothing.

Then in February criminal charges were brought against against the two victims of the assault.

It is unclear why Dzyndzya should have been detained now. With so much else happening in Kyiv at the moment because of the EuroMaidan protest, this seems an extraordinary moment to detain the men, and to then refuse them their constitutional right to see a lawyer.

It is, unfortunately, possible that the purpose is, in fact, to instigate conflict which will then need to be crushed.